Christianity teaches it in the Person of Christ. The Cross is an abstraction until clothed in flesh and blood. like a philosopher to one in suffering: you get an acknowledgment of your effort, but you have not soothed the sufferer. But go and tell him of the law in Christ; tell him that He has borne the Cross; and there is the peculiar Christian feeling of comfort, with all its tenderness, humanity, and personality. The law of the Cross is the truth, the rock truth, but only in a Person. And hence comes the hymned feeling-how much more living than a philosophy! "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee." So it is that in the mere word Cross there is that sentiment which no other word in the English language can supply. Law of self-sacrifice? No: that is cold, not dear to us, personal, living, like the Cross. Oh, we live-not under laws, nor philosophical abstractions, but under a Spirit: and the true expression of Christianity is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Let us exemplify this from the experience of missionaries. How beautiful and touching is the remarkable gratitude of Gardiner for a few drops of water trickling down a parched boat's side! Listen, too, to what Krapf says :-" In the sanctuary of reason I find nothing but discouragement and contradiction; but in the sanctuary of God a voice comes to me and tells me-' Fear not; death leads to life, destruction to resurrection, the demolition of all human undertakings to the erection of the kingdom of Christ."" Observe how this is the very principle expounded last Sunday. The death and resurrection-the law of Christian life-was his strength, as of old it was St. Paul's. 2. The contemplation of things not seen. Two characteristics are mentioned as belonging to these things. They are, "not seen," and "eternal." Now what are these things? Not merely things unseen, because they are hidden by distance, so that we shall see them hereafter, and only not now; but they are things which are not seen, because they never can be seen. They are not things which are superior to those which are seen; because though of the same nature, the latter perish, while the former last for ever. They are not houses which do not decay, nor clothes which do not wear out; but they are things which are eternal, because they are not material. This is the essence of the distinction and contrast. The Right, the True, the Just-these are not seen, and never will be; they are eternal, but they exist now as they will be for ever. The Kingdom of God is not fixed in one place, nor known to the eye of sense; it cannot come "by observation :" neither can ye say, "Lo! here," or "Lo! there," for there is no locality now, nor will there be for ever for the things which are Eternal, Immortal, Invisible. These are the things of which St. Paul says: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." It is the outward and material things that inward that are renewed. Pain is for time: Physical punishment is for time; but horror perish it is the guilt is for ever. 'can never die! Distinguish well what the heavenly is: because it is not the mere element of Time that makes things base or noble. A thrill of nerve, even if it were to last for ever, would not be heavenly. A home of physical comfort, even if it were to endure like the Pyramids, would be no sublimer than one of straw and rafters. But the everlasting Heaven of God's saints is around us now. The invisible world contemplated by the martyrs is what it was, and ever will be-visible only to faith. 3. The thought of a life beyond the grave. Take this in connection with the 16th verse of the 4th chapter, with this thought in our hearts: "For which cause we faint not; though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." Some men there are to whom this hope is impossible. There are some who live a merely human life and life merely as such, since it does not necessarily imply immortality, produces no inward certainty of an existence. beyond the grave. There are those who lead the life of the ephemeron, in whom there is nothing immortal, spending their days like the beasts that perish-nay, less fitted for eternity than they. No deep thoughts, no acts fought out on deep abiding principles, have been theirs. They live mere accidental beings, light mortals who dance their giddy round above the abysses, looking at the things seen, with transient tears for sorrow and transient smiles for joy. This life is their All; and at last they have fluttered out their time, and go forth into endless night. Why not? what is there in them that is not even now perishing? But St. Paul, beset by persecution, the martyr of the Cross, daily flying for his life, in perils by land and sea, drew immortal comforts out of all his trials. Every sorrow gave him a keener sight of the things invisible. Every peril, every decay of the outward, strengthened in him that inward man "risen with Christ," which is the earnest of our immortal life. With this hope he was comforted, and with this eternal existence growing within him, he was buoyed up above the thought of weakness or of dismay. A time would come when all should be changed: this earthly house should be dissolved; but he fainted not: for he says, "We know that we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." The hope of immortal life was his, and with that he was consoled. That hope was not a selfish one. There are some who say that to live a high life here, in the hope of immortality hereafter, is an unworthy object; that it is more noble to do good, and to act well, and be content to perish. Strange perversion! Is the desire of food, for the sake of food, selfish? Is the desire of knowledge, for the sake of knowledge, selfish? No! they are appetites each with its appointed end: one a necessary appetite of the body, the other a noble appetite of the mind. Then, is the desire of immortal life, for the sake of more life and fuller," selfish? No! rather it is the noblest, purest, truest appetite of the soul. It is not happiness nor reward we seek; but we seek for the perfection of the imperfect for the deep, abounding life of those who shall see God as He is, and shall feel the strong pulsations of that existence which is Love, Purity, Truth, Goodness: to whom shall be revealed all the invisible things of the Spirit in perfection! LECTURE XLIIT. 2 CORINTHIANS, V. 4-11. -November 28, 1852. IN the verses Stial trial the thought of things N the preceding verses St. Paul has spoken of two great invisible, and the expectation of a blessed resurrection. In considering them, I tried to explain what things invisible are : and I said they were not things unseen because separated by distance, or by reason of the imperfection of our faculties, or of any interposed veil; but they were unseen because in their nature they were incapable of being seen-such as Honour, Truth, and Love. I tried to show how the expectation of immortality is not a selfish hope, because it is not the desire of enjoyments such as we have here, but the desire of a higher inward life—" an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." But here evidently a mistake might arise. Speaking thus of a spiritual heaven, it is quite possible that men might conceive of it as a disembodied state, and suppose the Apostle to represent life in a visible form as degradation. There were such persons in the old time, who thought they could not cultivate their spirit-nature without lowering that of their body. They fasted and wore sackcloth, they lay in ashes, and eschewed cleanliness as too great a luxury. Nay, they even refused to hear of a resurrection which would restore the body to the spirit: redemption being, according to them, release from the prison of the flesh. In opposition to such views the Apostle here says, correctively: "Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed |